Orbital Sciences Scrubs Launch After Premature Cord Detachment

Orbital Science's Antares rocket sits on the launch pad at Wallops on Tuesday. The water tower holds more than 300,000 gallons of water which is used for sound suppression and to protect the pad from thermal damage during launch.

The top of the liquid oxygen tank can be seen here on the Antares rocket slated for the demonstration mission to the ISS later this summer. This is where the second stage connects that will hold the Cygnus spacecraft. This rocket is being processed in Orbital's horizontal integration facility (HIF) about a mile from the launch pad.

At the other end of the Antares the fuel and oxidizer lines can be seen at the base of the rocket. The middle T-line carries the liquid oxygen from the 41,000 gallon tank at the top of the rocket, while the two shorter lines on the sides carry the high grade kerosene from the 21,000 gallon fuel tank.

A pair of Aerojet AJ26 rocket engines are mounted on a test stand before being integrated to the Antares in the previous photos. Here Orbital can check the six degrees of pitch and yaw motion of the rocket gimbals. The engines were originally built for the Soviet lunar program more than 40 years ago. They were largely redesigned and refurbished in California by Aerojet.

This Antares was used for a hot-fire test back in February. The rocket and engine will be inspected, and overhauled. It is scheduled to be used for the third Antares launch, which is the first commercial cargo contract flight.

The second stage of the Antares is powered by a solid fuel rocket made by ATK of Utah. The 33,000 pound rocket will provide the final boost the Cygnus spacecraft into orbit. Future Antares rockets will used a new version of the Castor 30 engine providing it with greater boost capabilities.

Here the second stage rocket engine can be seen in a photo from last year attached to the Antares that is launching today.

Cyrillic writing beneath one of the hatches on the Antares shows the Soviet heritage of the Ukrainian made rocket.

In the HIF at Wallops the rocket scheduled for today's launch is on the left side of the photo. One of the AJ26 rocket engines sits in the foreground. Half of one of the fairings that covers the Cygnus spacecraft at the top of the Antares can be seen on the right.

A closeup of the base of the Antares sits on the new launch pad built by the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The concrete blast vent is on the right side of the pad. The Atlantic Ocean is just 100 feet or so to the right of the photo.

UPDATE 5:38 PM EDT: Today’s scheduled launch of the Antares rocket was scrubbed less than 15 minutes before lift off. Orbital Sciences spokesman Barry Benski says an umbilical cord used to power the that provides an ethernet data connection to the flight computer on the second stage of the rocket prematurely detached. Everything had been looking good for a launch… up until that point.

“The rocket looked great and we weren’t working any technical issues,” Benski told Wired.

Orbital says there will not be a launch attempt tomorrow. The next scheduled launch day is Friday, though the weather forecast doesn’t look good for launching the Antares with NASA saying there is an 80 percent chance of a “weather violation.”

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WALLOPS ISLAND, Virginia — One of the country’s oldest commercial space ventures plans to lift off today at one of the world’s oldest launch facilities, and you’d be forgiven for not having heard of either of them.

Orbital Sciences doesn’t have quite the mainstream recognition of SpaceX, but it has been sending things into space since 1982 and is, like it’s more famous, if less experienced competitor, one of two companies NASA has hired to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Orbital will make the first demonstration flight of its new Antares rocket when the 133-foot-tall rocket lifts launches from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility at 5 p.m. EDT.

The Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft it will carry is, with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Dragon, one of two systems NASA is relying upon to deliver supplies to and from the ISS. SpaceX got an earlier start and is further along, having already completed a demonstration flight last May and has already completed two contracted cargo flights to the station.

Despite the late start – Orbital was initially passed over for the cargo contracts – the Virginia-based company has made up for lost time and is scheduled to launch a dummy payload into orbit today. A follow-up flight test, which will include docking with the ISS, is scheduled early this summer. If all goes well, Orbital will begin the first of eight contracted flights – worth $1.9 billion over – through 2016.

Today’s launch marks a milestone for Orbital, and the Antares rocket is the company’s single biggest project to date. It once again shines a spotlight on the country’s growing private space sector. It also will put the spotlight on the country’s oldest rocket launch facility, NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility, which is a few hours east of Washington D.C.

“It’s going to be the biggest, brightest and loudest thing ever launched from Wallops,” Orbital Sciences vice president Frank Culbertson told reporters gathered at the facility on the Virginia coast.

More than 16,000 rockets have lifted off from Wallops Island since it opened in 1945. Most were suborbital research rockets, some not much taller than the men and women who built them. Today’s launch of the Antares is a far bigger endeavor, and the launch should be easily seen by people throughout the region. Weather permitting, rocket fans from Maine to South Carolina could catch a glimpse.

“People think you have to go to Florida to see a space launch,” said Culbertson, a three-time shuttle astronaut who has launched from Cape Canaveral.

The launch will occur on a new pad built by the Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial launch facility supported by the state of Virginia. It is the first new launch pad built for a liquid-fueled rocket in more than 30 years.

“When we started this program six years ago, none of this existed,” said Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial space development. ‘There was no building, there was no pad, and there was certainly no rocket.”

With the new pad in place, McAlister said he looks forward to seeing Wallops play a growing role in the private space race.

Orbital considered launching from Cape Canaveral but chose Virginia because it’s closer to home and because it had a say in the design of the new launch pad, said Antares program director Mike Laidley. Although launching in Florida provides the benefit of being closer to the equator, Laidley said the faster rotation velocity of the Sunshine State (which provides a free energy boost for orbital vehicles) didn’t outweigh those benefits.

“Orbital wanted the opportunity to be help influence the fundamentals of the design with regards to the Antares need,” he said. “We certainly like being the big fish in the pond.”

Like the Wallops launch site, Orbital Sciences lacks the popular name recognition of others in the new space race. But it has been in the space business since 1982, and its innovative commercial space vehicles include the air launched Pegasus rocket. Orbital has completed more than 750 missions, including more than 70 space vehicle launches and hundreds of smaller rocket launches. It also has built and delivered dozens of satellites to orbit.

Almost the entire first stage of the Antares rocket can trace its roots to the Soviet Union’s space and missile program. The core tank assembly/fuselage is based on a design from the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau and built in the Ukraine by Yuzhmash. It is similar to the Zenit rocket that was to replace the Soyuz before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The two rocket motors that will power the first stage are more than 40 years old and were first designed to power the Soviet Union’s lunar launch vehicle in the 1960s. More than 30 surplus engines were bought by Aerojet of California and have been extensively redesigned and rebuilt for the Antares.

For the upper stage, Orbital turned to ATK, the Utah company that built booster rockets for the space shuttle and traces its roots to the birth of the U.S. missile program. The solid rocket booster will provide the final boost for the Cygnus spacecraft.

Like SpaceX, Orbital cautiously reminds people that today’s flight is the first test of a new rocket and things can go wrong. Culbertson told everyone gathered for the launch that rocket science isn’t simple

“That first word is test, so if things don’t go exactly as planned, we will learn what we need to learn,” he said, “and we will press on and continue to improve as we go forward.”